Charlene E. Fick

Lorraine Desrochers can't explain why she went shopping near her daughter's job at Petco in Attleboro on Feb. 20, but she's glad she made the unusual move.

It was the last time she saw her daughter alive. Charline E. (Gingras) Fick, a divorced, 35-year-old mother of two who was to celebrate a birthday tomorrow, had been invited to The Station by a man she had met less than a year ago, relatives said.

Known to the family only as Paul, he made it out of the burning nightclub, but is traumatized that he tried but failed to save Fick, her family said.

"The show started at 11. I don't believe she was in that place more than five minutes. She had just gotten there," said her mother, also of Central Falls.

"She was the life of the party ... We've been blessed. She'll always be in our hearts," she added.

Relatives said Fick grew up in Pawtucket and finished dog-grooming school in Lynn before enlisting in the Army and serving in Operation Desert Storm. Her children, Samantha, 12, and William, 10, had moved to Michigan last year to live with their father.

She loved to bowl and spent just about every Friday night at the East Providence Lanes.